End of an Era: AG’s Editor Says Goodbye

Just a shade under eighteen years ago, I submitted a review of Faust: Seven Games of the Soul for consideration to Adventure Gamers’ then-editor Evan Dickens. Why then, specifically, or why that game in particular, I no longer recall, but little did I know that it would end up representing something of a Faustian bargain in its own right. In less than six months, Evan had stepped down from his role, and somehow I found myself thrust into a position of authority I never sought or even previously contemplated.

I took my responsibility seriously, however, in trying to turn AG into a professional-quality gaming magazine with a singular specialist focus – and the rest, as they say, is a whooooole lot of history.

In many ways AG back then was very similar to what it is now, but in other ways it was very different from what the site would go on to become. The early 2000s were the darkest days for the genre. Never dead! But clearly on life support. There were maybe fifty new games a year at the time, few of them very good. Just producing enough content to keep the site updated regularly was a challenge, and let’s just say our Hype-o-Meter was stuffed with filler much of the time.

All that began to change soon after I became Adventure Gamers’ Editor-in-Chief. Since then both the genre and the site have gone on to flourish in previously unimaginable ways. We’re now averaging over two hundred new games each year, spanning an ever-increasing number of story- and puzzle-driven subgenres. And though we’ve lost many of the “AA” level (and higher) productions of the genre’s heyday, the void has been more than capably filled by ambitious indies limited only by lower budgets than their better-known (and better-funded) predecessors.

I jokingly take outsized credit for this unexpected renaissance, but of course it’s really a combination of many factors, including improved development tools, digital distribution, and cross-platform viability that began with a huge boost from the Nintendo DS in bringing the genre back into a more mainstream limelight. Adventure games are still a niche, but they’re a thriving niche that shows no signs of slowing down. I do, however, earnestly believe that a healthy gaming industry goes hand in hand with a healthy fan-driven community, and it’s not entirely a coincidence that AG’s growth and success have echoed that of the genre’s itself, and vice versa.

The catch is, all that growth comes at a cost, both monetary and one of effort and hard work. Over the years we’ve expanded our staffing levels to more than forty people to accommodate the rapidly growing demands. Where once we had to scrounge for new content, now we’re posting some form of original feature content seven days a week, almost every day of the year, often with multiple daily news updates on top of that. Rather than being a writer and editor and part-time facilitator, my role evolved into something more like a full-time hospital administrator that required constant 24/7 attention.

Needless to say, the relentless workload began to take its toll, and I not only flirted with serious burnout on many occasions, I was doing it all for free. Then AG’s previous owner Marek Bronstring offered me a small stipend for my efforts (equivalent to roughly half of local minimum wage, to put that in context), which could do nothing to alleviate the strain on my available time and energy, but at least relieved me of some of the financial burden of putting so many hours into the site each month. Sadly, in recent years our revenue has significantly decreased, even with the generous support of our Patreon backers, to the point where AG’s current owner, Ivo Teel, felt that serious decisions had to be made.

And so it is with a wide range of emotions that I announce that today is my last day as editor of Adventure Gamers. I turn the reins over to Ivo, who has his own vision for the site that differs somewhat from mine, and I look forward to seeing what the future has in store under his direction.

As exhausting as it's been, I look back on my time at the helm with no regrets. I’ve written many hundreds of articles myself, edited thousands of others, and covered still more games on top of that. Along with the exponential increase in daily content, we introduced a host of fun features over the years, among them the Top 100 All-Time Adventure Games list (which I always wanted to update, but see above for why I never did) and of course the yearly Aggie Awards. And every Christmas we tried to deliver an extra-special offering, most recently our series of video developer greetings, and before that the legendary Christmas Quest trilogy, each made in just a few short weeks by the staff of AG (three of the most insanely busy but intensely memorable holiday seasons of my life).

Not everything worked out exactly as planned. The introduction of more video content hit a serious snag when our carefully curated collection was unceremoniously wiped out by YouTube for reasons they’ve still never explained, forcing us to start all over from scratch on Vimeo. Our short-lived blog was a great idea in theory and provided some interesting supplementary material while it lasted. But adding yet another content stream on top of the ones already stretched to the breaking point was never destined to work long-term. There were lots of other things I hoped to implement as well, and just never had the time or proper opportunity to do so.

More importantly to me personally are the many wonderful relationships I’ve enjoyed over the years. While having to remain at something of an arm’s length for reasons of professional detachment, I’ve established many cherished connections with countless developers with whom I share tremendous mutual respect. (Well, I hope the “mutual” part is true!) And I couldn’t possibly have asked for a better team of writers, mods, administrators and other colleagues here at AG over the years. We’ve had a lot of turnover in eighteen years, of course, but it’s a testament to our staff's dedication that so many stayed on as long as they did on a purely volunteer basis. My goal as editor was always to help shape better writers, not merely better articles, and I saw so many reviewers evolve and grow both as authors and as people, and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.

It’s been fun, too, watching our community of fans as they’ve ridden the ebbs and flows of the genre right along with us. It’s their passion and enthusiasm that continually fueled me to keep reaching for new heights, to keep pushing boundaries as best I could. I always believed our readers deserved nothing less. A special thanks goes out to those who supported us financially these last few years, of course, without whom we couldn’t have done what we did for so long.

So thank you all very much, from the bottom of my heart, for being an important part of making these eighteen years such a … well, such an amazing adventure.

On a personal promotional note, stepping back now leaves me with far more time for other professional pursuits, and I’m not abandoning the industry entirely! Whether game scripts, localization editing, PR, design consultancy, news, reviews and more, I’ve done it all in my time here at AG, so if anyone is interested in collaborating on projects in future, whether on a full-time or freelance basis, I’d welcome hearing from you at edtrjack@gmail.com. (Or if you'd just like to drop me a line and say hi, goodbye, or anything in between, that's welcome too. It's always a privilege to hear from fans and followers of the site.) 

And on that note, my fellow adventure gamers, I bid you all a final adieu. And since I hate sad endings, I'll just ... hey, look behind you, a three-headed monkey!

> Exit